The Russian ship Akademik Shokalsky was trapped in the Antarctic since Christmas Eve.

Three powerful icebreakers, including China’s Snow Dragon, were dispatched to help free it.

The rescued passengers have now been transferred to the Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis. The vessel will carry the passengers to the Australian island state of Tasmania due to arrive there by mid-January.

57 founding members, many of them prominent US allies, will sign into creation the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Monday, the first major global financial instrument independent from the Bretton Woods system.

Representatives of the countries will meet in Beijing on Monday to sign an agreement of the bank, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. All the five BRICS countries are also joining the new infrastructure investment bank.

The agreement on the $100 billion AIIB will then have to be ratified by the parliaments of the founding members, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing in Beijing.

The AIIB is also the first major multilateral development bank in a generation that provides an avenue for China to strengthen its presence in the world’s fastest-growing region.